Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

Technodemons of the Digital Self 227to blend. The basic message of Mercer is ambivalent, one of suffering andcomforting connection: “There is no salvation. […] [Y]ou aren’t alone. […]It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity.”114 For Deckard, the fundamental dilemma is that he simultaneouslyhas to feel empathy – even love – towards androids, and yet kill them, in orderto be a “human” individual. This individuality is based on a paradox: “individual”is, by definition, something indivisible and whole. 115 Deckard has alove affair with Rachael Rosen, a female Nexus-6 who has artificial memoriesand who initially believes that she is a human being. Deckard thinks thatRachael helps him to capture other androids, whereas her real goal is tomake him fall in love with an android, and incapacitate him as a bountyhunter. 116 Love and the pain of betrayal works in Deckard’s case to demonstrateto him both the necessity of borders towards the android otherness,and how necessary it is to violate these borders to really understand the relationshipbetween humans and androids. Deckard’s true identity, in the end,is not completely “individual,” not clearly separate from the others. Even theandroids with their demonic traits cannot be completely set apart fromDeckard’s true self. Deckard goes through the traumatic episode of “killingthe things he loves”: 117“I’m sorry, Mrs. Baty,” Rick said, and shot her.Roy Baty, in the other room, let out a cry of anguish.“Okay, you loved her,” Rick said. “And I loved Rachael.” He shot RoyBaty; the big man’s corpse lashed about, toppled like an overstacked collectionof separate, brittle entities […]. 118Afterwards, Deckard experiences a spontaneous fusion with Mercer; hefeels that he becomes Mercer, without the consoling awareness of other Mer-114DA, 156.115 The etymology of “individual” is based on the Middle English meaning ‘single,’ ‘indivisible’,derived from Old French, and ultimately from Medieval Latin indîviduâlis(Latin indîviduus : in-, not + dîviduus, divisible ). (American Heritage Dictionary.) – Theinhumanity of androids can be linked with their lack of childhood: they may have childhoodmemories, but their bodies do not carry any biological bond to another organism(mother). In psychological terms, this image can be interpreted according to the lines ofattachment theory; Victoria Hamilton has used “attachment” rather than “bond” (whichhas negative and restricting connotations) to describe the basis for our communicationand coexistence. “Inherent in attachment theory is the notion that the first infantmotherrelationship creates that structure which governs later attachments. Since an attachmentis like an inner construct, it is stable and exists across space and time.” (Hamilton1982, 7.) Contemporary psychological theories, such as this, suggest that unbrokenpsyche is a paradox: psychic “wholeness” carries always something of the other in it.116 DA, 175.117“Yet each man kills the thing he loves, / By each let this be heard, / Some do it withthe bitter look, / Some with the flattering word, / The coward does it with a kiss, / Thebrave man with a sword! […] For each man kills the thing he loves, / Yet each man doesnot die. // For he who lives more lives than one / More deaths than one must die.” (“TheBallad of Reading Gaol” [1898] by Oscar Wilde.)118DA, 197.